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A Florida Dream Deferred

By

Maura Webber Sadovi

Updated March 3, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

The exuberance in the commercial real-estate market during the height of the boom was exemplified by the willingness of Wall Street to sell and investors to buy securities backed by highly speculative commercial mortgages.

Most commercial mortgage-backed securities were backed by office buildings, stores and hotels that had cash flow so investors in the bonds could see how they actually would be repaid. But some developers were able to issue CMBS to finance land acquisitions and other speculative developments with no...